Finney is rolling along, right by Your Side / From childhood in Palo Alto to his career as KGO-TVs consumer watchdog, Michael Finney has stuck by the little guy

Janet Somers, Special to the Chronicle

Published 4:00 am, Friday, July 29, 2005

Photo: PAUL CHINN

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ABC 7 consumer affairs reporter Michael Finney went skateboarding with his son Connor, 11, and daughter Kelly, 7, along the Marina Green on 7/15/05 in San Francisco, Calif. Finney, who skateboarded as a kid, took up the activity again with his son about five months ago.
PAUL CHINN/The Chronicle less

ABC 7 consumer affairs reporter Michael Finney went skateboarding with his son Connor, 11, and daughter Kelly, 7, along the Marina Green on 7/15/05 in San Francisco, Calif. Finney, who skateboarded as a kid, ... more

ABC 7 consumer affairs reporter Michael Finney and his wife Brenda helped their two kids Connor, 11, and Kelly, 7, pack for summer day camp at their home on 7/15/05 in San Francisco, Calif.
PAUL CHINN/The Chronicle less

ABC 7 consumer affairs reporter Michael Finney and his wife Brenda helped their two kids Connor, 11, and Kelly, 7, pack for summer day camp at their home on 7/15/05 in San Francisco, Calif.
PAUL CHINN/The ... more

Photo: PAUL CHINN

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Homeowner Rick Ali (left) and Michael Finney try to figure out the complicated instructions.
Michael Finney, consumer affairs reporter for ABC 7�s �7 on Your Side,� tests do-it-yourself crown molding that�s made out of plastic, to see if it actually holds up. He and Hayward homeowner Rick Ali and his sister Ayisha Ali try to install the crown molding.
Photo by Michael Maloney / San Francisco Chronicle less

"We're going to see how the stuff works," the 49-year-old KGO television reporter says. "I saw it on the Internet, and I thought, 'What's this? Easy molding, cheap molding?' And I ordered it. Because people spend a fortune on molding. Wait till you see this stuff."

Finney, a 25-year broadcast veteran and tireless consumer watchdog, is joined on this day by KGO cameraman Marc Sanchez-Corea. With Sanchez-Corea at the wheel, they head east across the Bay Bridge toward a house in the Hayward hills. There, they meet homeowner Rick Ali and his sister Ayisha Ali, who have agreed to let Finney try out the plastic, do-it-yourself product at their house. The three climb atop ladders and install the molding as Sanchez-Corea films. The assignment is all part of the bread and butter of KGO's nightly consumer segment, "7 On Your Side," which Finney has orchestrated and run since its inception in 1993.

Finney has successfully taken on a list of consumer rip-offs longer than a hot summer night with a broken air conditioner. His team has even been the impetus behind state legislation.

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"We had a tip that a woman had paid $18,000 for a car that was on sale for $14,000," he recalled. "We fixed her problem, but then we did an undercover investigation."

Posing as would-be customers, the team found that salespeople would often quote them prices higher than the advertised one. "That's illegal in the state of California," Finney said. "The (existing) law was a good one, but wasn't being upheld."

Finney suggested to Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, legislation requiring dealerships to post advertised sale prices in plain sight. He testified before a Senate subcommittee in favor of the bill, which became law in the fall of 2001.

Finney lives in San Francisco with his wife, Brenda; children, Kelly, 7, and Connor, 11; and the family's Jack Russell terrier, named P.D., short for Perfect Dog.

Finney grew up in Palo Alto and has become a Bay Area hero of sorts, slaying dragons of consumer abuse ranging from bogus "hospitality charges" at restaurants (which restaurants used to cover the cost of San Francisco's new minimum-wage law) to unfair window-replacement fees in San Francisco's building-permit department (the fee was the same to replace one window or 100 of them).

And then there was the infamous "Laundry Ball" scam, a sphere that purportedly washed clothes without detergent. "It was a small ball, and you threw it in there and it 'ionized' or whatever, and these things were selling for a lot of money," Finney recalled. "Everybody swore their clothes were getting clean. And so we bought them."

The team hired scientists, who found that leftover detergent in the fabric was what actually got the clothes clean. The soap lasted just long enough to convince people that the ball worked and to sell it to others. "It was a pyramid scheme," Finney says.

Along the way, Finney has had fun, too: He once dropped a thermos from a news helicopter and let an elephant stomp on it to test the manufacturer's claim that it was unbreakable. (It was.)

"He has become the conscience of San Francisco," said Jamie Court, president of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. "When Michael Finney leaves a message for a company, it's worse than being called by '60 Minutes.' Amazingly, his network has stood behind him; people who cause this type of trouble in most cities in America lose their jobs. The San Francisco market craves this type of information."

Even some businesses whom Finney has busted appreciate his work. Recently, he got on the case of El Rancho Inn and Suites in Millbrae for misleading advertising on their billboard, which read, "Stay one night, park two weeks free." Several customers had been quoted lower prices for a room without the park-and-fly package.

"Mr. Finney arrived at the property and asked for me, but I wasn't here," recalled El Rancho manager Art Schwass. "He put together his story anyway. The nice thing about Mr. Finney was that he called the day the story was going to air to give me a heads-up.

"After the story aired, I called him back and said, 'Mr. Finney, I want to let you know we agree that the billboard isn't fair, and we are in the process of changing it.' We really felt Mr. Finney was balanced and fair. He was very nice. We came up with a short-term solution, to add the word 'almost' to the billboard so it says 'park almost free.' "

In a letter after Finney's piece ran, El Rancho owner John Wilms thanked him for his efforts. "Our family has operated El Rancho Inn for over 55 years, and a business simply does not attain that type of longevity by alienating our potential customers," Wilms wrote. "Unfortunately, our billboard seems to have done just that. We are very grateful to you... for bringing this problem to our attention."

Back at the Hayward house, Finney and the Alis cut pieces of the plastic molding and glue them to the walls.

The results are mixed; cut edges are obvious. "You have to caulk," Finney pronounces. "There's no way you can get around caulking. But this isn't a bad product."

When KGO-TV news director Kevin Keeshan originally approached Finney about doing the show, Finney, then a general-assignment reporter at the station, was reluctant.

"I had been doing long-form investigations, and I didn't want to fix a broken toaster every day," he said. "Two things convinced me: First, this station has the guts to have this unit. I've never once been told not to do a story. Two, we could throw a real wide net -- I could continue doing investigations."

In addition to Finney, the 7 On Your Side unit includes four full-time staff members, 16 part-time consumer counselors and five paid interns. Finney and his team receive about 1,500 consumer complaints per week in letters, phone calls and e-mails. The segment has been honored by the National Association of Consumer Advocates, Consumer Action and other consumer groups.

Finney was born in Dayton, Ohio, and spent his early childhood in Florida. The family moved to Palo Alto when he was 11. He always wanted to be a journalist; as a kid, he could name Chronicle writers like other kids named Giants players.

Finney earned his bachelor's degree in communications at California State University at Chico in 1978 and worked at TV stations in Idaho, Bakersfield and San Diego before returning to the Bay Area in 1991 to work at KGO. He has won an Emmy, a Golden Mike and other rewards for his reporting.

Finney's mother and father, Nancy and Bob Finney, still live in Palo Alto. His mother recalled the time 5-year-old Michael chastised a boy who had stolen another child's bike: "He said, 'Don't take anyone's bicycle ever again. How would you like it if somebody took your bicycle?' Michael wanted life to be fair, for himself and everyone else, too."

When Finney was 6, his father sat him down and gave him the bad news: life isn't fair. He's been fighting it ever since.

As an 11-year-old paperboy for the (now defunct) Palo Alto Times, Finney learned to fend for himself: negotiating a raise, buying cheap plastic bags at a nearby bakery and learning who the deadbeats were on his route. "There were people who were very, very nice to a little kid," he recalled. "And then there was a doctor that just wouldn't pay. I just don't like it when big people pick on little people. That includes me when I was a paperboy, and that includes someone who can't stand up for themselves now."

Later, he worked as a recreation leader at Palo Alto's Mitchell Park Community Center. Geoff Stephens, a childhood and college friend, recalled that Finney had the Doobie Brothers band under contract for a junior high school dance at the center. The band became famous and tried to renege on their contract; Finney forced them to honor it.

"He was hell on wheels," recalled Bill Goggin, Finney's journalism teacher at Wilbur JuniorHigh School in Palo Alto (now Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School. Finney also attended Ortega Elementary School and Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, both now defunct). "Bright, a smart alec -- one of those kids you couldn't help but like."

Finney did a story for the class' daily five-minute TV news show on a rash of bike thefts at the school. He refused to reveal a source, and his report helped put pressure on the school to build a fence to prevent future thievery. He was 12.

In college, his friend Stephens says, Finney was a hippie with hair down to the middle of his back.

Finney's hair is neatly trimmed today as he and Sanchez-Corea head downhill toward the Hayward flats after the molding shoot. "Can you believe I get paid to do this?" Finney says. They pull up at the home of Agnes Johnson, 73, who has complained of receiving an electric shock from her hair dryer.

In the house, the camera rolls as Johnson shows Finney her letters to the manufacturer and her emergency room bill. She describes the "red streak" that flew out of the apparatus while she was drying her hair. "The doctor said if there had been water on the bathroom floor, I would have been dead," she says.

"Well, Mrs. Johnson, that was a close call!" Finney says. He picks up the hair dryer and shakes it; it rattles ominously. "We won't desert you on this," he says on his way out.

"I love you!" Johnson yells.

Finney says he wants to do a story; he's read that hair dryers kill six people per year.

He's currently working with Underwriters Laboratory on an investigation.

Stamper said later, "This incident really scared our family... and the idea of thinking that we had almost lost her. I was really impressed by the way Mr. Finney responded. My mom was so flabbergasted, she talked all night about him. She called all her friends and family (saying), 'Michael Finney was in my house!' "

Finney says that mostly, complaints arise when a good company makes an honest mistake. He's more interested in exposing defective products and problems within an industry.

He discourages merchants from going too far to make amends: "Once a company was going to give a woman a major appliance for free, just because I got involved. We said, 'Don't do it.' "

But he is also proud of the way the show has changed how business is done in the Bay Area: "Businesses know there's someone out there," he says. "They know they're being watched."

The station has been threatened by lawsuits from companies Finney has gone after. He's found himself in some sticky confrontations. Once, a "huge, buffed" business owner started to lock him and a photographer in the business' front office. The pair ran out the last unlocked door, confronted the owner on the sidewalk and still got money back for a group of customers. "We don't give up, and we don't go away," Finney says.

Finney has written a book, "Consumer Confidential: The Money-Saving Secrets They Don't Want You to Know" (Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc., $14.95), that includes advice on how to write a letter of complaint plus tips on insurance, car buying, travel, real estate, money management and protecting privacy. The book is dedicated to Finney's older brother, Bob, who died five years ago of a heart attack: "He taught me how the world works and how the world should work," Finney writes.

His biggest role model is Mike Wallace of "60 Minutes."

"He's a great writer, a great reporter, he picks the great stories to do, " Finney said. "He's in his 80s, and he's still doing it. I hope when I'm in my 80s I'm still doing 7 On Your Side."

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